Despite Charlton’s poor scoring record since Duchâtelet took over, it is perhaps surprising that the club is joint top in terms of hat-tricks per club in the Championship within that timescale. Here is the list:

Birmingham City

3

Blackburn Rovers

3

Bournemouth

3

Charlton Athletic

3

Reading

3

Derby County

2

Fulham

2

Watford

2

Bolton Wanderers

1

Brentford

1

Burnley

1

Huddersfield Town

1

Hull City

1

Ipswich Town

1

Leeds United

1

Middlesbrough

1

Millwall

1

Norwich City

1

Nottingham Forest

1

Former Reading player Adam le Fondre is the only player to have scored two Championship hat-tricks in that time. Current Reading Striker Yann Kermorgant is the only former Charlton Player to have scored a Championship hat-trick in that timescale; and he very nearly added a second one against Charlton on Saturday.

Depending on who is doing the counting Captain Marvel, Johnnie Jackson, notched up either his fiftieth or his forty-ninth goal for The Addicks against Birmingham at the weekend. Here’s a summary of all fifty:

Having scored nine goals and taken nine points from the last four games, it is suddenly feeling good to be a Charlton fan again. After a dreadful January that saw us score just one goal and earn two points, the team seems rejuvenated. The incoming players have fitted in very well and Guy Luzon seems to have the whole team playing with considerable confidence. So how did February as a month compare to the other months so far in Charlton’s league season?

February was certainly the most polarised month so far. During Bob Peeters reign, a massive 52% of all games ended in draws. In February there wasn’t one. The three wins of February are the most in any month this season, but then so are the three defeats. In terms of points per game (PPG) the healthy 1.5 of February is the third best so far this season. It’s not as good as those optimistic days at the beginning of the season with our 11 match unbeaten run, but it is head and shoulders above the dark days of winter when we only just scraped half a point per game. It is particularly pleasing that the club’s league position has risen from 18th to 12th over the course of the month.

It is perhaps to early to say if the corner has been turned yet, but both the performances and the results have been the best for quite a while. If a similar level performance continued throughout March we might reasonably expect to take around 8 points. That would bring us up to the 50 point mark and probable Championship safety.

In the table above, Charlton’s monthly performances are ranked by Points Per Game and then Goal Difference.

Frédéric Bulot’s injury time goal against Brentford was very welcome indeed. It might not have earned us any additional points, but it was well taken and sealed the match and a good team performance all round. As far as injury time goals go it was also long overdue though; the last time Charlton scored a goal with the clock showing 90+something was back in August when Igor Vetokele got the equaliser against huddersfield. There have been just three other late goals (after 80 mins) in that time. We’ve earned 5 points from those five goals.

Unfortunately the opposition haven’t been so shy of scoring; Charlton have conceded four injury time goals and five other late goals in this time. These have cost us 8 points.

Saturday saw a fantastic win for Charlton and a long awaited one. The 13 match winless streak (14 including the cup) has finally ended. As the calendar below shows it’s been a long time since a we had a win and a longer time since we had a good one:

So far this season Charlton have played 22 matches and scored 23 goals. The goals to games ratio, 1.05, is not impressive. Indeed it is joint 17th in the division – on a par with Bolton and Millwall. Best is Bournemouth with 2.27 goals per game. Worst is Sheffield Wednesday with 0.73 goals per game.

What is most disturbing for Charlton fans though is the way that the goals have tailed off. Only Igor Vetokele has hit the net with any regularity this season. However he hasn’t scored in over a month now and no-one else has taken over goalscoring duties. In the time since Igor last got a goal, against Reading on 8th November, only Harriott, Buyens and Cousins have scored, and they’ve only managed one each. The chart below shows how the goals have dried up.

Please click to enlarge

Charlton did start the season very well and boasted the longest unbeaten record in the division. Those early successes were largely built on being very tight defensively. Despite being in the play-off positions early on, Charlton never really dominated their opponents and victories were all by a slim margin. This meant that it has only taken a small decrease in the number of goals scored to seriously effect the number of points taken:

Please click to enlarge

It looks as though Charlton will need to do something soon to increase the number of goals scored if the season isn’t to peter-out completely.